A wine importer wanted to do a showroom. We proposed making it a public space, a bar that would be open to everyone.

It’s not a large space. A glazed room on the corner of Östermalmstorg, [a plaza] in central Stockholm. We wanted it to become part of the plaza. From early on we were thinking about brass, a reflective material with a mirror finish. You can stand in there and see yourself as part of the plaza. The floor of the bar was designed to strengthen the effect: it’s the same rough stone that paves the plaza outside and has the same distinctive directional pattern. Inside and outside can be read together.

We treated the brass to make the bar unique. We perforated it to make a pixelated image of grape leaves. As usual, we also experimented with the materials. As a contrast to the brass, we did panels of Masonite that look like stone after they’ve been finished with linseed oil.